There are some birds that can take care of themselves almost as soon as they are born; but Mrs. Cuckoo never leaves her eggs in their nests. Oh, no! she chooses a nest in which the young birds are well cared for by their mothers, and fed with food on which the young cuckoos thrive best.
Why she is too idle to build her own nest, no one knows. Some people say it is because she stays so short a time in the same country, that her young ones would not get strong enough to fly away with her, if she waited to build her nest. Others think it is because she is such a great eater, that she cannot spend time to find food for her children.
But the kind foster-mothers, the larks and the thrushes, care for the egg that the cuckoo leaves in their houses, although, if any other bird leaves one, they will take no care of it at all, but roll it out upon the ground.

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